Snatch
USA/UK 2000
Reviewed by Xan Brooks
Synopsis
Our synopses give away the plot in full, including surprise twists.
Jewel thief and courier Franky Four Fingers steals a vast diamond in Antwerp and prepares to deliver the stone to his boss, Avi, in New York. But Franky is ambushed (and later killed) in London by buffoonish henchmen Vinny, Sol and Tyrone, working for a Russian mobster, Boris. Meanwhile, unlicenced boxing promoters Turkish and Tommy recruit an Irish gypsy, Mickey One Punch, to fight in a bout organised by crimelord Brick Top, who demands that the boxer takes a dive in the fourth round. Instead, Mickey wins the fight, enraging Brick Top, who nevertheless arranges another match in which Mickey must dive in the fourth. To ensure the gypsy's obedience, Brick Top's mob kill Mickey's mother.
Avi arrives in London in search of his diamond and hires London hardman Bullet Tooth Tony to find Franky. But Brick Top has also got wind of the heist and threatens to kill Vinny, Sol and Tyrone unless they deliver the gem to him. After a stand-off in which Boris is killed, the diamond is eaten by a dog belonging to the gypsies, which escapes through a window. Avi inadvertently shoots Tony while aiming for the dog. That night, Mickey wins his fight, landing himself, Turkish and Tommy in trouble with Brick Top. But Mickey's fellow gypsies spring a surprise attack, slaughtering Brick Top and his gang. Visiting the abandoned gypsy camp the next morning, Turkish and Tommy find the thieving dog and take possession of the diamond.
Review
Compare Guy Ritchie's Snatch to his 1998 debut Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. The content is unchanged (hard nuts and cheeky chancers in underworld London), but the delivery is different. Desperate even. If Lock, Stock ran on a kind of bullet-headed punk aesthetic (albeit one that was more Sham 69 than the Sex Pistols) then Snatch has the feel of a free-style jamming session. What we have here is a gaudy mess. At times it feels like it's being made up as it goes along.
Snatch opens by introducing its myriad characters in stylised freeze frame. In hindsight, it's probably the only time the picture pauses for breath. Thereafter this tale of the misadventures surrounding the theft of a diamond "as big as a fist" unfolds as a series of brashly ordered set pieces; snazzy dramatic fireworks with little pacing, point or purpose.
Ritchie sets his horizons wider than he did in Lock, Stock, for the film makes a great show of reflecting a certain British multiculturalism. Where Lock, Stock gave house room to mockney lads only, Snatch opens its doors to Jews and blacks and Irish "pikeys" and Russians and (surely with an eye on the transatlantic market) visiting Americans. Yet while the intentions of all this may be admirable, the handling lets it down. Snatch sets its stall straight away with a scene in which a bunch of comic-book Jews (actually burglars in disguise) shuffle along to a Fiddler on the Roof soundtrack and then alight in a scuzzy campsite full of thieving gypsies. In labouring to avoid political correctness, Snatch falls back on stereotypes. These characters are too affectionately rendered to cause much offence, but in dramatic terms they're phoney creations.
The problem, perhaps, is that Ritchie remains a far better director than he is a writer. Put him next to a camera and he shows a panache that's crude but absorbing. Sit him at a word-processor, though, and he swiftly succumbs to masturbatory gangster fantasies propelled by the sort of tennis-match banter that reads like a bad marriage of Tarantino and television's Minder (Tommy: "Who took the jam outta your donut?" Turkish: "You did, Tommy. You took the jam outta my fuckin' donut"). The fact that such decent actors as Dennis Farina and Benicio Del Toro are killed stone dead by the language Ritchie lands in their mouths makes Brad Pitt's fate all the more impressive. Playing pikey boxer Mickey, Pitt tramples his dialogue into muddy impenetrability, twitching and gurning at the edge of ludicrousness. In refusing to take the part seriously, he winds up as the film's most convincing inhabitant.
Ritchie apparently wrote the Snatch screenplay before Lock, Stock was released, and, although drawn on a broader, more costly canvas, this shaggy-dog crime caper still feels like the work of a first-time film-maker. It's a show-off concoction of look-at-me camera moves tethered to a script that runs on a breathless 'and-then-and-then-and-then...' daisy chain of incidents. In the end, Ritchie's antics are so geared towards snaring the viewer's attention that he loses sight of the bigger picture. Snatch throws a bunch of ideas at the wall and hopes that some of them will stick. Rarely has such an eagerly anticipated film from a supposedly established director looked so much like a calling-card.
Credits
- Director
- Guy Ritchie
- Producer
- Matthew Vaughn
- Screenplay
- Guy Ritchie
- Director of Photography
- Tim Maurice-Jones
- Editor
- Jon Harris
- Production Designer
- Hugo Luczyc-Wyhowski
- Music
- John Murphy
- ©Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc.
- Production Companies
- Columbia Pictures presents in association with Ska Films a Matthew Vaughn production
- Executive Producers
- Peter Morton
- Steve Tisch
- Stephen Marks
- Angad Paul
- Trudie Styler
- Co-producer
- Michael Dreyer
- Associate Producers
- Sebastian Pearson
- Taha Ali Reza
- Production Co-ordinator
- Emma Pike
- Production Manager
- Adam Bohling
- Location Manager
- Pat Karam
- Location Unit Manager
- Ashton Radcliffe
- Post-production
- Jatinderpal Chohan
- Assistant Directors
- David Reid
- Dan Toland
- Mick Ward
- Script Supervisor
- Mary Haddow
- Casting
- Lucinda Syson
- Camera Operator
- Peter Wignall
- Digital Effects
- The Moving Picture Company
- Special Effects
- Supervisor:
- Ken Lailey
- Technician:
- Caspar Lailey
- Co-editor
- Les Healey
- Art Director
- Julie Philpott
- Set Decorator
- Linda Wilson
- Costume Designer
- Verity Hawkes
- Costume Supervisor
- Sharon Gilham
- Wardrobe
- Caroline McCall
- Melina Fragkia
- Make-up/Hair/Tattoos
- Chief:
- Fae Hammond
- Key:
- Pebbles
- Make-up/Hair
- Belinda Parrish
- Title Design
- Stuart Hilton
- Ian Cross
- Music Editor
- Danny Sheehan
- Score Engineer/Mixer
- Daniel L. Griffiths
- Music Consultant
- Ian Neil
- Researchers
- Karen Elliott
- Matt Biffa
- Soundtrack
- "Supermoves" - Overseer; "Diamond", "Are You There?" - Klint; "Hernando's Hideaway" - The Johnston Brothers; "Golden Brown" - The Stranglers; "Ghost Town" - The Specials; "Dreadlock Holiday" - 10cc; "Cross the Tracks (We Better Go Back)" - Maceo and the Macks; "Disco Science" - Madonna; "Hot Pants (I'm Coming, Coming, I'm Coming)" - Bobby Byrd; "Sensual Woman" - The Herbaliser; "Angel" - Massive Attack; "Fucking in the Bushes" - Oasis, contains samples from Murray Lerner's film "Message to Love - Isle of Wight 1970"; "Don't You Just Know It" - Huey Smith; "Viva Las Vegas"
- Sound Design
- Matthew Collinge
- Sound Mixer
- Simon Hayes
- Re-recording Mixers
- Mike Dowson
- Mark Taylor
- Dialogue Editor
- Danny Sheehan
- Effects Editor
- Matthew Collinge
- Foley
- Artists:
- Jason Swanscott
- Dianne Greaves
- Editor:
- Michael Redfern
- Technical Consultant
- Ranald Graham
- Stunt Co-ordinator
- Tom Delmar-McCormick
- Armourer
- Charlie Bodycomb
- Cast
- Benicio Del Toro
- Franky Four Fingers
- Dennis Farina
- Avi
- Vinnie Jones
- Bullet Tooth Tony
- Brad Pitt
- Mickey One Punch O'Neil
- Rade Sherbedgia
- Boris the Blade
- Jason Statham
- Turkish
- Alan Ford
- Brick Top
- Mike Reid
- Doug the Head
- Robbie Gee
- Vinny
- Lennie James
- Sol
- Ewen Bremner
- Mullet
- Jason Flemyng
- Darren
- Ade
- Tyrone
- William Beck
- Neil
- Andy Beckwith
- Errol
- Jason Buckham
- Gary
- Mickey Cantwell
- Liam
- Nikki Collins
- Alex
- Teena Collins
- Susi
- Charles Cork
- MC
- James Cunningham
- horrible man
- Sorcha Cusack
- Mum O'Neil
- Mickey Dee
- Jack The All Seeing Eye
- Sam Douglas
- Rosebud
- Adam Fogerty
- Gorgeous George
- Goldie
- Bad Boy Lincoln
- Stephen Graham
- Tommy
- Sid Hoare
- Reuben
- Ronald Isaac
- referee
- Chuck Julian
- Michael
- Dave Legeno
- John
- Eric Meyers
- Avi's colleague
- Jason Ninh Cao
- Charlie
- Paul O'Boyle
- Patrick
- Jimmy Roussounis
- Paulie
- Sydney Sedin
- Pauline
- Trevor Steedman
- Bomber Harris
- Yuri Stepanov
- Himy
- Peter Szakács
- Sausage Charlie
- John Taheny
- Salt Peter
- Mick Theo
- Mad Fist Willy
- Andy Till
- John the Gun
- Velibor Topic
- the Russian
- Scott Welch
- Horace 'Good night' Anderson
- Michael Hughes
- Liam McMahon
- Jim Warren
- Gypsy men
- Austin Drage
- Liam Donaghy
- Joe Williams
- Gypsy kids
- John Farnell
- Shaun Pearson
- Dean Smith
- Roy Snell
- Brick Top's henchmans
- Tim Faraday
- Andrew Shield
- policemen
- Certificate
- 18
- Distributor
- Columbia Tristar Films (UK)
- 9,235 feet
- 102 minutes 37 seconds
- Dolby Digital/SDDS
- Colour by
- DeLuxe